Octopus Overlords

Now is the inevitable dilemma, what games to pack along for the long holiday weekend? Flash Point and Merchants & Marauders are a given. Lords of Waterdeep would probably be a good pick. Innovation is a crowd favorite, and King of Tokyo should probably go in. Dare I pack in Mage Knight for some solo play? It's these weekends I wish everyone else were coming to me.

Boudreaux wrote:Now is the inevitable dilemma, what games to pack along for the long holiday weekend? Flash Point and Merchants & Marauders are a given. Lords of Waterdeep would probably be a good pick. Innovation is a crowd favorite, and King of Tokyo should probably go in. Dare I pack in Mage Knight for some solo play? It's these weekends I wish everyone else were coming to me.

I feel you pain. My current list is:

M&M
LoW
A Few Acres of Snow
Defenders of the Realm
Tsuro
TtR
and maybe a D&D boardgame for my old D&D crew (since I didn't get a D&D adventure together.

Oh, and probably Alien Frontiers too!

I got to try Defenders of the Realm at Geekway, that was really fun. We played a friend's copy, he has all the Hero expansions so there was a bewildering number of choices. I went with the Assassin, and the ability to vanish at the end of a turn and then reappear within 3 spaces was fantastic. Alas, we didn't pay enough attention to the generals and lost. We tried a second game later in the con and drew the Monarch City card, which added three minions to Monarch City. Still good, right? Need five to lose, and two of us were right next to the city. Shuffle all decks, deal another Darkness Spreads card, which was...Monarch City. Three more minions, we lose. Given that there's one Monarch City card in the deck, we managed to shuffle it right back onto the top of the deck. Genius.

Alien Frontiers would be another good game to take back. So would 7 Wonders. And Tobago. Argh. Used to be I'd pack an entire plastic bin full of games, but lately I've had to limit it to 3 or 4 just due to space. This trip, we have hardly any extra room. It's going to be painful making choices.

I played 1989 for the first time last night, with NickAragua. It was fun, though we were both getting our sea legs with the game. It wound up ending pretty quickly, with a turn 4 win for the democrat. Communists took an early lead in Hungary, but the democrat bombed Poland pretty quickly and wound up toppling its government (somewhat fortunate, given an unmodified VP role) in year 2. But then democracy surged in Hungary, and it fell in turn 3, followed by East Germany in year 4, which ended it.

Definitely fun. Still love the mechanics, fun new setting. 1989's cards seem much more happy to pass around influence than Twilight Struggle's - a lot more "put 5 influence down here" type cards. Also had fun trying to pronounce new locations.

hepcat wrote:Like I said, I don't dislike Vasel. I just don't buy games solely on his word any more. And while I agree that Star Trek Fleet Captains has some balancing issues (Feds can win by turtling and doing science missions pretty easily) I'm hoping the upcoming Romulan expansion adds a new dynamic to the game. I think there's a good game in there, it just needs a few tweaks to make it really shine, imho.

I just saw what he did with his Hawaii video. That was low class and not at all professional. Even if the game wasn't very good, it is some designer's baby and was presumably sent to him for a fair review without theatrics.

Here is what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... jiWoqviW50" target="_blank

El Guapo, you are killing me! I am still trying to think how to explain 1989 to the wife so she might play it. The game really isn't that complex, but it is complex enough to make her roll her eyes.

Newcastle joined Remus West, LordMortis, redrun, and myself for an evening of Games and Flatulence.

We played Puerto Rico (and if I EVER sit to his left again I swear to the Dark One I am bringing a polyester fleece throw and he's getting a dutch oven when he steals my Privilege), sadly just the basic game.

Then we broke open my Stone Age w/Expansion and played three games of it until everyone was blearly eyed and slap happy.
I think I love it even more with the expansion (kind of like the way Kingsburg blossomed with its expansion).

Got my copy of 1989 last night. Drooled over the 90 dollar copy of Virgin Queen they had as well, but couldn't figure out when I'd be able to get 6 people to sit down for a shorter, 36 hour game.

hepcat wrote:Got my copy of 1989 last night. Drooled over the 90 dollar copy of Virgin Queen they had as well, but couldn't figure out when I'd be able to get 6 people to sit down for a shorter, 36 hour game.

I'm reading the rules for Virgin Queen. My thought is that the game is less a board game and more an country-based RPG with a board. It looks BRILLIANT but I have no idea how I'm going to teach it.

Closest thing to play Europa Universalis in a physical version.

I'm making a components, mechanics, and first turn AAR video for 1989. I'm very impressed with this game!

Going to squeeze in a spontaneous game of 1989 this afternoon. Not sure how I feel about power struggles after reading through the rules last night, but I guess I'll find out for sure shortly enough.

hepcat wrote:Going to squeeze in a spontaneous game of 1989 this afternoon. Not sure how I feel about power struggles after reading through the rules last night, but I guess I'll find out for sure shortly enough.

I played through a solo one. They really are less "gamey" than they sound. You would be surprised how strategic a simple game of matching suits can be!

7 hours later...

Sheesh, that was one long game. Granted, we had a few breaks that amounted to about an hour, but still. To be fair, we played to final scoring though.

The power struggle worked really well. I actually really enjoyed each one. There's another layer of strategy with trying to control non battleground spaces simply to get more cards for a struggle that make sp placement even more important. Plus, trying to figure out when and if you can get a rally card with its benefits into play as the winning card is like playing poker.

Overall, I like it. I think there's room for both TS and this in my gaming library.

Played a couple games of Pandemic with the family. We managed an easy 4-player win last night with the red disease not coming out of the deck until after we'd cured it.

3-player game today ended with the blue virus getting out of hand.

Had a great weekend of gaming down at my folks. Started off with teaching my 9 year old son to play Quarriors this weekend, and he totally kicked my ass in the game we played. Then my buddies Joe and John came over, and we had a mini-marathon of gaming. First game was Lords of Waterdeep, and I got my ass kicked in that one...I trailed the entire game, and John ended up beating out Joe by 2 points after the final tally hit. John chose the next game, and we played the Legend of Drizzt. Had a really great time with that (as I do with all of the D&D adventure games) and we barely survived until the end. Then we moved onto Alien Frontiers (Joe's choice) and I pretty much dominated the entire game, thanks to a string of great rolls in mid game that gave me a great lead in ships and ore resources. About 9 we broke out Thunderstone Advanced and ended the evening with that (I won by a handy margin...I guess all of those games on Facebook helped!

Yesterday my brother came over and we broke out A Few Acres of Snow. That was a real exercise in patience on my part, because he had the hardest time grasping the deck building mechanics for the game. I kept having to explain the rules to him over and over again. Despite that it was very still an enjoyable game and want to get it to the table again with someone that I don't have to handhold.

Just sold my Descent set for 325 on ebay, so if we get back into it 2nd ed I can start fresh (and cleared room for my Heroscape!)

Chaosraven wrote:Just sold my Descent set for 325 on ebay, so if we get back into it 2nd ed I can start fresh (and cleared room for my Heroscape!)

Damn. I should seriously think about doing that, if I could get anywhere close to that price.

Ordered Castle Panic (and the Wizards Tower expansion) earlier. Should have it by Wednesday. I have been reading that it is a good game....

hentzau wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:Just sold my Descent set for 325 on ebay, so if we get back into it 2nd ed I can start fresh (and cleared room for my Heroscape!)

Damn. I should seriously think about doing that, if I could get anywhere close to that price.

give it a go, I put it up for a five day and two days later it went for that BuyItNow.

MythicalMino wrote:Ordered Castle Panic (and the Wizards Tower expansion) earlier. Should have it by Wednesday. I have been reading that it is a good game....

It's a great game to play with kids. Not something that I would pull out to play with friends, though (unless they were all drunk (or Hepcat.))

Chaosraven wrote:

hentzau wrote:

Chaosraven wrote:Just sold my Descent set for 325 on ebay, so if we get back into it 2nd ed I can start fresh (and cleared room for my Heroscape!)

Damn. I should seriously think about doing that, if I could get anywhere close to that price.

give it a go, I put it up for a five day and two days later it went for that BuyItNow.

Yeesh! Too bad my original box shipped to me from Amazon crumpled. Now the entire game is in a tackle box. Still, I think I want to upgrade my current set to 2nd ed, so I think I will keep it.

My wife (yes, that's right) played 1989 with me tonight. I really really like it, and I feel like it is a much more focused game than Twilight Struggle (which means you have to really be tactical about your moves, rather than approach the game with a more grand strategy outlook). The only thing that bugged me was the scoring, which I found to be a bit confusing. I need to really re-read the rules on the Aftermath of Power Struggles, because it seemed like, even if she won the struggle and overthrew my regime, scoring was still skewed towards the Communist player (because of that Power multiplier thing).

hentzau wrote:

MythicalMino wrote:Ordered Castle Panic (and the Wizards Tower expansion) earlier. Should have it by Wednesday. I have been reading that it is a good game....

It's a great game to play with kids. Not something that I would pull out to play with friends, though (unless they were all drunk (or Hepcat.))

Yeah, I have been on the fence about it for such a long time. Boardsandbits.com has both for relatively cheap (at least I thought it was cheap). So, I got it, mainly for a family game, particularily for the kids.

MythicalMino wrote:

hentzau wrote:

MythicalMino wrote:Ordered Castle Panic (and the Wizards Tower expansion) earlier. Should have it by Wednesday. I have been reading that it is a good game....

It's a great game to play with kids. Not something that I would pull out to play with friends, though (unless they were all drunk (or Hepcat.))

Yeah, I have been on the fence about it for such a long time. Boardsandbits.com has both for relatively cheap (at least I thought it was cheap). So, I got it, mainly for a family game, particularily for the kids.

Then you should be very happy with your purchase. My (younger) kids love it.

I'd agree it's a great game for the family, but with the Wizards Tower expansion the game becomes a lot more difficult, with plenty of tough decisions to make throughout. I think it elevates Castle Panic to more-than-just-family status.

I managed to get 2 board games going this weekend. First was Ticket to Ride: Europe. We're all pretty bright people who can certainly point out China on a map, but everyone agreed the only really tricky part to the game was trying to figure out where certain cities were. We all know where Pittsburgh, Dallas and Seattle are... but had to spend a little bit of extra time when planning route trying to find Sochi, Zagreb, etc. That point aside, everyone really liked it and thought the map layout made for a more interesting, tighter game.

After that we played 7 Wonders and finally got to try out the Leaders expansion. Hard to gauge the expansion on one play but everyone seemed to like it. I picked my leaders with a certain strategy in mind but wound up screwing it up. I was trying to win with lots of points for money but had to spend my gold buying up Science cards since my father-in-law was grabbing them left and right... I know that can lead to some really high scores. In the end I had a pretty even balance of science, civic and military power, my son had tons of gold and beat everyone militarily throughout the game, while my father-in-law had an impressive array of science cards. Final scores were 54 for my son, 50 for me and 49 for my father-in-law.

AEG just released the original Thunderstone in Thunderstone Advanced format for free download (print and play format) here:

http://www.alderac.com/thunderstone/201 ... -and-play/" target="_blank

IceBear wrote:AEG just released the original Thunderstone in Thunderstone Advanced format for free download (print and play format) here:

http://www.alderac.com/thunderstone/201 ... -and-play/" target="_blank

Man. It would probably cost almost as much in ink as it would to just go out and buy the game!

Got in several good games of Flash Point: Fire Rescue over the weekend, and even won a couple of them. It takes quite a bit from Pandemic, but I like it SO much more. I don't know if it's the random element added by the die rolls or what, but all of our games have been far more entertaining than Pandemic ever was.

Also introduced my brother in law to Merchants and Marauders, and played a game of Lords of Waterdeep with my father in law and my 7 year old son. He did really well, coming in second only a few points behind me. Of course, he was crowing about how he was going to win for the last couple of turns, so he had to eat those words, but overall I was proud of how well he did.

I have Flash Point, but have not spent much time at all with it. Been wanting to, though. My son really likes the whole fireman setting...

I've started a recruitment thread for a game of Ground Floor in Forum Games, check it out here.

Ground Floor kickstarter page

GF is a worker-placement-ish economic game. I've played it four times, and like it a lot.

so we played a 3 player game of Castle Panic...and it was a huge success for my two boys. We lost, but it was a nail-biter right down to the end. Both of them really liked it, and are wanting to play the expansion already.

Got to play a couple games of MtG multiplayer (killed by my stinky brat of a son both times), then played edh with a friend I haven't seen in years. Whupped his decks with my Green Black White Ghave deck, then saw my Blue Wizards fall apart against those same decks.

Considering going out for allnight MtG at the truck stop (FREE SECONDS FOR FAT BASTARDS!)

Sadly my Cosmic Encounter group will be unable to play this week.

I played a few games of Kids of Carcassone with my 6 year old. It took a couple games but he actually started picking up on the strategy and was somewhat competitive. I'm so proud. Also, so much better than the boredom that is Kids of Catan. Huge waste of money there.

Played Small World yesterday evening, which I hadn't played in awhile. Lots of fun as usual, and nice that it doesn't take a day and a half. My main gripe with the game is that especially with the expansions it's tough to fit everything in the box, and there's a million little different tokens and whatnot. I've already started to lose a couple here and there.

But regardless, lots of fun, though my Seafaring Orcs and Fortified Pixies were unable to carry me beyond 3rd place.

Somebody has apparently not purchased the appropriate number of minicraft bags and tacklebox containers...

Nope. Someone is philosophically opposed to buying more crap to support the game that if necessary should've come with the game in the first place. Also: lazy.

El Guapo wrote:Nope. Someone is philosophically opposed to buying more crap to support the game that if necessary should've come with the game in the first place. Also: lazy.

I concur but then I often go get sandwich baggies anyway... And have at least five tackle boxes with games sort in them. Oddly enough because I'm lazy. There is a point where game sorting sucks and paying $10 to make it easier to be lazy for a game I want to play is worth it. OTOH, I don't buy card condoms and I hate when they are suggested because the components I bought were cheap.

I almost always buy a tacklebox or a bin with lid because that way the expnsions fit. I buy either little bags to separate components or a minibox with compartments for stuff that will be going in and out during the game. But I am an OCD freak for that kind of stuff.

Chaosraven wrote:I almost always buy a tacklebox or a bin with lid because that way the expnsions fit. I buy either little bags to separate components or a minibox with compartments for stuff that will be going in and out during the game. But I am an OCD freak for that kind of stuff.

We really should have mixed up your Stone Age components.

A glorious evening of Cosmic Encounter! My son and I won the first game, our friend Dennis won the second with a devastating card machine (Remora, Glutton, Relic), and my son won the final game with Binary Star System using Glutton/Remora and Genius/Mind, winning with 20 cards in hand (I was Pygmy/Masochist, stymied by other people playing Moebius Tubes to keep my ships out of Warp), as the game ended with only one player having a single outside base. Much discussion of other parts to use (Moons, Tech, the other Reverse Hex systems, old Lucre powers, bidding for Powers, drafting for Powers, hidden powers added as outside base control grows...) I do believe I have from 4 to 6 Players for CE now. Aaaahhhhhh. Happiness.

my kids were out for most of today so I played some solo Le Havre (scored abysmally but had fun doing it) then Sunrise City with my youngest.

tomorrow we're taking a first look at Fury Of Dracula.

freelunch wrote:my kids were out for most of today so I played some solo Le Havre (scored abysmally but had fun doing it) then Sunrise City with my youngest.

tomorrow we're taking a first look at Fury Of Dracula.

Apparently there is an iOS version of Le Havre coming very soon (by next month)! I am so excited about this! I love the game, but my wife is not keen on the long playtime.

About Mage Knight, does anyone actually use the Dummy Player? I just bought the game and I really don't like dummy player mechanics in general so I was wondering if it was really necessary.

I'm looking forward to playing it though... one day ;_;